Street team called on to identify, manage, reduce problems with homeless, gangs

A small but specialized team within the Chula Vista Police Department fills a large role: The nine-member street team and gang suppression unit is responsible for the proactive policing of about 400 homeless and more than 1,000 gang members.

Each day officers are confronted with unique circumstances and are expected to understand, reduce, manage and identify the problems they come across.

“This is to ensure that we have the number of first responders that we like to have in patrol,” Wedge said. “It started earlier this year for a handful of months.”

Chula Vista Police Lt. Roxana Kennedy oversees the team as the south district commander and said its members are hand-selected through a competitive process.

“It’s an extremely proactive unit so we want people who are willing to be out there, have interpersonal skills and the ability to be self directed,” Kennedy said.

Two officers are assigned to the gang suppression unit and two others to graffiti. The unit works street level crimes and works in collaboration with the community.

During a meeting in southwest Chula Vista on March 28, the main focus was homelessness.

While there are no homeless shelters in Chula Vista, the police department works with local organizations to place single women and children somewhere safe.

“We try to provide them resources as far as where they can go,” said Sgt. Christine Penwell, who supervises the team. “The hardest population to provide resources to is single males because a lot of them simply choose to be homeless.”

Homelessness is most prevalent in the southwest area because it’s highly concentrated, according to Kennedy.

Nationally, homelessness is a sensitive issue and officers must find a delicate balance to ensure public safety while protecting the rights of the destitute.

“Many of them are good, honest people that are just down on their luck and find themselves literally sleeping on a cardboard box with whatever they can carry,” said Officer Jasen Cunningham, who is also a team member.

Still, Penwell said, they must approach each circumstance with care.

“There have been many cities that have been sued successfully for … infringing on their rights,” she said.

“People are very sympathetic to the plight of people that are living on the street,” Kennedy added. “It’s a social issue.”

Chula Vista resident Bill Perno, who attended the March 28 meeting, asked about used and abandoned shopping carts.

“Is there an ordinance for that?” he said.

Cunningham said the answer is complicated.

Officers can’t legally take carts from the homeless although they are technically stolen.

“If the cart’s empty, there is a cart retrieval service that we can call,” he said. “However if the cart has items in it, there is certain limitations that we have.”

The restrictions are outlined in the city’s code.

“It must have name, address, number and inscription that it must not be removed from the premises,” Cunningham said.

Another issue the unit covers is graffiti.

While the city has lost money for its graffiti abatement program due to budget cuts, the unit is now able to rely on the a graffiti tracking program, introduced by county Supervisor Greg Cox. It uses public works crews with GPS-enabled cameras to photograph graffiti and mark it with the date, time and location. The information is kept in a database that law enforcement investigators and prosecutors can search to determine patterns or geographic areas.

Last year the department had 20 prosecutions with nearly $100,000 in damage and $20,000 owed in restitution, the majority of which aren’t gang-related. Each tag is one count.

As far as gangs, two officers on the street team are directly responsible for the prevention and suppression of gang activity.

“They’ll go out into the city and into the neighborhoods where they might know that there’s hot spots for gang activity and make contacts with people they believe and know to be involved in gang activity,” Penwell said.

These officers immerse themselves in gang culture, which Penwell said is mostly generational.

“Conservatively, we probably have about 1,000 to 1,200 gang members in the city of Chula Vista and those are only known those to be from Chula Vista,” Penwell said. “Twenty percent of the population gives us probably 80 percent of our work. Often times we’re dealing with a lot of recidivism.”